Right after 9/11 [September 11, 2001, the airplane attacks on the Twin Towers in New York City, New York], one Federal Court declared that the words “under God” in our Pledge of Allegiance to our nation are unconstitutional. That decision is making its way to the Supreme Court. The effort is being made—at this very time I am speaking to you—the effort is being vigorously pushed to remove our national motto from our coins: “In God We Trust.” The intent is to make this an atheistic nation. One court has already said that the religion of America is atheism and that the government has no place mentioning God anywhere! God has been dismissed from our schools, and guns and knives and violence and fear have moved in. You know that! It’s in your newspapers; it’s on your news on TV, and radio, too. God is being removed from our country. There was a survey earlier this week on one of the networks: 92% of the people in America say they believe in God. That leaves only 8% that are pursuing this fight against God, and doing it successfully. Step by step, they [the 8%] are eliminating God in our country.

In Edmond, Oklahoma [where Mack Lyon and his wife live and work], the city seal is sort of a square shape. One corner has the oil industry depicted; the other corner is education; the other is business; and the other corner is a cross, indicating that these were the four foundations on which the city of Edmond was built. The ACLU took us to court, and we had to remove the cross because the government can’t have a cross on its city seal! People are trying to put God out of our nation completely and wholly! You say, “Well, they’ll never do it!” But they are doing it! Step by step—it is happening! The Supreme Court Justice in Alabama—you’ve heard of Judge Roy Moore—may go to prison, but he was forced to remove the Ten Commandments from where they were in the Justice Building in Montgomery.

How important is God to us? It’s important to those people [those 8%] to get rid of Him! How important is He to us to keep Him? What would we do—what would we give to keep God in the foreground and let people know about God and to preach the Gospel—the “Good News” about God? You see, God is “Good News” because God is love! 1 John, chapter 4 [verse 8] says, “God is love,” [“He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.”].

Madeline Murray O’Hare, who was known best for her work of getting God out of the school system, died an atheist, of course. In 1999, the Internal Revenue Service auctioned off her possessions so they could settle her indebtedness to the government. Her diaries were in that auction. Four times in her diary, she wrote in big letters, “Somebody, somewhere, love me!” “Somebody, somewhere, love me!” But God is love! She dismissed God! When you dismiss God, you dismiss love also—“For God is love.” It isn’t that God is loveable, or that God is loving. God IS love­—personified! Put God out—you put love out!

In 1 John, chapter 1, verse 5, the Bible says, “God is light, and in Him is no darkness,” [“This then is the Message which we have heard of Him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.”]. God is light! You put God out and it’s dark! “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep,” or “covered the face of the deep,” [Genesis 1:1]. You know what dispelled that darkness? God said in verse 3, “Let there be light: and there was light.”You see, God dispels the darkness of evil.

We are in a terrible war against evil—it’s awfully close to our house! We [Mack Lyon and his wife, Lois] don’t have a storm cellar under our house. Lois is from Alabama and she wasn’t used to quite so many of them [violent storms or tornados]. Then a storm came, and she said, “What are we going to do when we watch TV, and the men on that TV say ‘If you don’t have a storm cellar, you get in a small room in the center of your house…’” a closet, perhaps? So she ran in and removed the vacuum cleaner out of the closet, and we got in the closet with a battery-powered radio. That’s one way [the battery-powered radio] they tell you where it’s [the storm/tornado] going. As they see the lights going out and the power going off, they know where the tornado is. And our lights went out! Let me tell you, it was dark! There were no street lights to shine in the windows, because they were out too! There were no lights—not even enough light from the little digital clocks! It was dark!

In a Gospel meeting, recently, where I had said these things, someone gave me a little note that said, “No darkness is so great that it can extinguish the light of one tiny candle.” But we have to let our lights shine. We in the churches of Christ are challenged tonight. This very moment, while we are here, we are being challenged to let our lights shine!

I’m about to close [my lesson]—my throat lozenge is about gone!

In the book of Revelation, the first chapter, John says he had this vision, some of which he didn’t understand. There was the mystery of the seven stars and the seven golden candlesticks. He didn’t understand that. So the Lord said to him, “The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches: and the seven candlesticks which thou sawest are the seven churches,” [verse 20]. And then He tells John in the first two chapters of Revelation to write these letters to the seven churches.